A/N: Please note that this story takes place during episode 5x04 "Aqua" and that some dialogue is lifted directly from the episode. Additionally, things take more of an adult turn here, so be advised if that's not something you particularly enjoy.
The first time he dreams of Lois in that way, he's more than a little taken aback. Lana is most definitely the star of most of his nighttime fantasies. Other girls—Alicia, Desiree, Abby, even Chloe—have made appearances as well. But this is Lois and he doesn't even like her that much, he especially doesn't like her like that, so it makes absolutely zero sense that she's showing up in his subconscious, crawling across his bed in a red lace bra, an indescribably sexy pout across her full lips.
"I've wanted this for so long, Clark," dream-Lois whispers, reaching out a hand and running it over his suddenly bare dream-chest. "We're perfect together."
And then she straddles him and dream-Clark kisses her hard and his hands find her waist. Then dream-Lois is writhing beneath him, and her face contorts in pleasure as she gasps his name and clutches his back with her fingernails.
Clark, real-Clark, sits straight up in bed, drenched in sweat. His clock glows 4:45 and he has just enough time for a cold shower before he has to start his morning chores. Embarrassed by his obvious arousal, Clark bundles his clothes at his waist and sneaks across the hall to the bathroom where he turns the tap on full blast and steps into the icy spray.
Unfortunately, having invincible skin means that the cool water does nothing to assuage his feelings and before he knows it, he's remembering his dream and the way her greenish-brown eyes had darkened when she—
No.
To his dismay, there seems to be only one way to rid himself of this problem before chores. He conjures up one of Lana's many appearances in his dreams and grasps himself firmly, moving his hand slowly up and down his shaft.
It works for a while. But as his hand moves faster and his movements become more hurried, his concentration on Lana slips and he's thinking about Lois again—her mouth and her fingernails in his skin and the way she'd looked up at him as he had moved within her.
He finishes with a low moan and stands under the running water for a few extra minutes, trying to catch his breath.
Lois is in Europe until the end of the year—that's the only thing that gives him solace as he feeds and milks the cows, gathers the morning's eggs from the chicken coop, and races down to the back forty to repair a faulty stretch of fence. Lois is in Europe and even if she weren't, no one is privy to his dreams—and humiliating moments of weakness in the shower—but him, so he's finally able to relax a little when Lana calls and invites him to a gathering at the lake later today.
Things with Lana are good, better than he'd ever hoped for, actually, and for the first time he feels like he might be able to get everything he wants… If he can just figure out how to control himself so he can be with her in every way. His dream about Lois is a fluke, a one-time thing. He doesn't think of her like that and it's not like he can choose who he dreams of.
Clark finishes his chores and gulps down his breakfast before Lana picks him up in her Jeep and they take off for Crater Lake.
She's supposed to be in Europe, so imagine his surprise when Lois shows up at the lake in a red bikini so tiny it shouldn't even count as clothing, a beach bag swung over her shoulder, and a smug expression on her lips. Lips he'd dreamed of kissing and nibbling and… Well. Those lips had played a leading role in last night's dream.
He must look as remorseful as he feels when he spies her walking across the beach with Chloe. He jerks away from Lana and Lois smirks and tells him not to look so guilty. She means for kissing his girlfriend in front of her, and she means it as a joke, but he's still mortified.
Lana, of course, has no idea that the blush that colors his cheeks was there before Lois had implied that he and Lana were… well, you know, and greets her good-naturedly. He's thrilled when she brings up the fact that Lois is randomly stateside so he doesn't have to. Instead he makes some lame-ass cracks about hoping he wouldn't have to deal with her again until after Christmas and smothering her with a pillow because his own mother has betrayed his trust and offered up his bed to her. A bed that, as soon as he figures out how not to kill her, he hopes to invite Lana back into very shortly.
Maybe that will take care of these annoying dreams.
Then Lois has to go and smile knowingly at him and tell him to get busy with Lana all he wants—she's a heavy sleeper—and he's reminded of the way dream-Lois had grinned at him as she touched him and kissed him and worked him into a frenzy. Then she hands her bag to Chloe and says she's going for a swim and he's both grateful to have her gone and terrified that he won't be able to control his physical reaction when he sees her dripping wet in that tiny bathing suit. Not when the images from his dreams still seem burned into his memory.
He is so happy when Lana wanders off to talk to some friends across the beach.
To distract himself from Lois, he turns his back to the water and talks to Chloe about just how slowly things are progressing with Lana now that he has his powers back. He's vaguely aware of the boys around him ogling Lois—seriously, how is that bathing suit even legal?—but he pays them no mind. He'd be perfectly fine ignoring that she was even there if Chloe didn't grab his arm and nod as her cousin perches on the diving platform in the middle of the lake.
"Lois was the state champion diver in Oklahoma her freshman year, right before they moved to Metropolis," Chloe boasts. "She's pretty impressive. You should watch."
He does watch as she bends her knees and jumps off. He also notices immediately that she over-rotates, but she slices through the water cleanly so he doesn't start to worry until Chloe shakes her head.
"Something's wrong. She's been under way too long."
Clark's heart jumps into his throat and he knows he need to run out and find her, pull her to shore, and make sure she's all right. But he's frozen in fear that he can't quite explain. Not Lois… It can't be Lois.
"Go!" Chloe shoves him forward and he has to concentrate hard on maintaining a normal human speed when really all he wants is to run as fast as possible to get to her more quickly. What if he's already too late? What if she's already gone?
Not Lois… Not Lois…
He's grateful when he hits the water and can propel himself far more quickly than a human. It isn't as fast as he'd like, it isn't as fast as he can run through a corn field, but it's enough, even if he can't keep awful thoughts from creeping into his head. I'm too late. She's gone. Lois is dead.
Clark is knocked off his path by something strong and fast and he stops in shock just short of where she floats because she isn't floating—she's being held in someone's arms. It's strange because they're just floating there, but what's even stranger is that this person isn't struggling to breathe. Clark can do a lot of things, but he still needs oxygen, although far less than a human, and his lungs burn in want of fresh air. This blond guy holding Lois actually grins at him before he jets away—much faster than what Clark could manage—leaving him awash in the strong current.
Who is this guy? What is he?
But there'll be time for all that later. Right now he's grateful for that stranger, because it might mean the difference for Lois.
He shakes his head and kicks to the surface of the water. As he swims in to shore, he keeps an eye on Lois, visible because of that damn red bikini. Lana is by her side with Chloe, and the blond rescue guy is bent over her, his hands dangerously close to the swell of her breasts. Clark kicks harder and makes it to shore just in time to see blond rescue guy bend to kiss her.
No. Not kiss her. CPR. Mouth-to-mouth. Lois isn't breathing.
His stomach lurches and he watches with bated breath until Lois turns her head and spits out a mouthful of dirty lake water with a sputter. He sighs in relief and runs a hand through his water-logged hair.
Blond rescue guy gingerly helps her to her feet and Lana rushes in immediately to escort a still very disoriented Lois to her car. Chloe meets Clark's eyes in question, but he just shrugs. He has no idea where his guy came from or who he is… Or how he seems to swim like an actual fish. The unusualness of it all bothers him, of course, but this is Smallville, after all, so another meteor-infested person to deal with means it must be a day that ends in 'Y.' What's important now is that Lois is okay and on her way back to the farm to recuperate.
He still doesn't like the blond guy. Mostly Clark doesn't like the way his arms drape around Lois's shoulders and trail along her bare back as he helps her into Lana's car because it reminds him too much of the dream he can't forget.
Lois is his friend and his concern is strictly platonic. He's with Lana and Lana is perfect. They are perfect. Even so, he can't seem to support this Lois and A.C. thing, probably because it's happening in his house, possibly even his bed, and it rubs him the wrong way. But it absolutely, under no circumstances has anything to do with his dream about Lois.
Chloe's search turns up nothing of import, with the mild exception of him breaking and entering to release all those dolphins. He even lets her think that she's right when she mentions that maybe he's jealous that someone else is playing the hero card. Truthfully, he isn't sure what about Arthur Curry gives him the willies, because it definitely doesn't have anything to do with Lois.
Unless maybe he's worried that she's going to get burned. The last thing he wants is for Lois to get hurt simply because he doesn't think he can handle the gallons of ice cream and weeks of self-loathing that would involve.
Still, when A.C. is sitting at the bar at the Talon, enthralling everyone and drinking an unusual amount of water, Clark can't help himself—he grills him about the University of Miami and swimming, trying to catch him in a lie. Lois's eyes narrow and he knows he's about to get in trouble. Nevertheless, he can't make himself stop. There's something up with this guy, and if no one else is going to believe him—not even Chloe, who's almost always down for theories of the bizarre—then it's up to him to prove to everyone that Arthur isn't to be trusted.
He isn't a bit surprised when Lois pulls him over to the side and berates him for questioning her new boyfriend. What does surprise him is that she refers to Clark as her "brother." It makes his stomach flip uncomfortably, because if Lois sees him as her little brother, then he should probably think of her as an annoying older sister, which makes his dream about her all the more disturbing. He wishes he could just squelch the visions from his brain with acid.
He should be happy for her. So he quietly decides that maybe he should cool the third degree as long as Lois is around and until he has something concrete on this odd Arthur Curry.
But that doesn't mean he trusts him or that he's going to stop looking.
Clark knew she'd be mad as hell when she found out that he not only followed A.C., but also saw him attempt to set a bomb. Of course, he makes up some story about how the fuse was faulty because the explosive was homemade, but she's less concerned about how Clark survived and more about why he thought it would be okay to spy on Arthur.
He shrugs and mumbles something about just not trusting him and she laughs sarcastically and crosses her arms over her chest before she tells him that it looks like he's jealous.
Jealous. Really. Clark Kent jealous because Lois is dating someone? Yeah, right. They're like brother and sister, that's all. Annoyingly over-protective and weirdly supportive of one another, regardless of how messed up the circumstance is.
But then he remembers walking in on A.C. kissing Lois in the living room a few days ago, one hand gripping the side of her face, the other maintaining a solid grasp on her waist and all he could think was that is not the way Lois Lane likes to be kissed. Not that he has any first-hand experience—or even wants it. But he knows her well enough to realize that she would hate feeling like she was trapped in someone's embrace and that was exactly what Arthur was doing. And then he flashed back to his dream, where he took her in his open arms and kissed her gently, softly, slowly, until she melted into him and allowed him to maneuver her in whatever way he desired.
Of course, dream-Clark clearly wants completely different things than real-Clark, so what's to say that real-Lois likes to be kissed like dream-Lois?
Oh, hell. This is getting too confusing.
He stands still for a long while after she storms back into the house, thinking about why Lois has rattled him so much since she returned so unexpectedly to his life.
She handles Arthur's abrupt departure with quite a bit more grace than he'd expected. Lois is sad, to be sure, and he knows that Chloe has two pints of Chunky Monkey in her fridge for later tonight when they'll stay up and watch romantic comedies all night long until Lois's broken heart is somewhat mended; but he'd expected dramatics, tears, and maybe even more yelling at him. She's resigned, however, when she ascends the loft stairs and laughs at him bent over his research project for Milton Fine.
"You know, my first week of college the only book I cracked open was the Bartender's Guide and even that was the Cliff's Notes version," she quips.
Clark shrugs, unsure if she's come to make peace or yell at him some more. "Well, I guess we're two different types of students."
"I hope so, for your sake."
He instantly feels bad. He knows Lois is still upset about losing her place at Met U last year, especially since her father seems to think she's wasting her life—and trust fund—by hanging out in Smallville with Chloe, but sometimes he forgets how fragile she really is. Then she goes and says something mildly self-deprecating and it makes him regret all the times he's been hateful to her.
"Look, Clark," she continues before he can work up the courage to apologize to her. "I know that I got a little thorny when you raised the red flag on A.C."
"I was just trying to watch out for you," he replies.
"And I appreciate it!" she says quickly. This is such delicate ground they're treading. He knows she absolutely can't know about his dream and thoughts of her over the past few days, but it feels like something is different between them and he hates that he can't pinpoint exactly what it is.
"I've just never had someone to help guide me through the shark-infested ocean of romance… Not that I can't fend for myself." Of course she'd tack that on to the end. Lois Lane doesn't show weakness, not even to someone she claims to think of as a brother.
"You know, I think I was wrong about our friend A.C. He was a little misguided, but his heart was in the right place." He means the heart that wanted to save the oceans, not the part that wanted to date Lois for two days before tossing her aside like toxic waste.
"Yeah. He was definitely unique." She smiles and watches him for a moment, and the way she narrows her eyes slightly makes him wonder if somehow she knows everything about him—secrets, fantasies...
Then she shakes her head slightly and continues. "I've known a lot of guys who want to own the world… I haven't met very many who actually want to save it." She sighs and turns to the loft's railing. "How am I ever gonna meet someone like that again?"
It suddenly makes perfect sense to him. He does care for Lois, somewhat, at least in a protective younger brother way. He's spent the last few days concerned that the first boy Lois paid any attention to since her arrival in Smallville would do exactly what A.C. did—use her and then dump her. He could almost laugh. Who knew that under that thick skin and tough as nails exterior, Lois Lane is a romantic?
It's a rhetorical question, he knows that, but he also knows Lois enough to realize that she's going to spend the next two weeks over-analyzing every single thing that went wrong in the short-lived fling if he doesn't do something to assuage her fears.
"Lois…" He crosses the small loft space and considers reaching out to touch her shoulder, but the memories of her hair tickling his bare chest while dream-Lois straddled his lap convinces him otherwise. He shouldn't even be speaking, but she sounds so small, so vulnerable… He can't let her think she's missed her chance at love.
"I promise: someday, you'll meet someone even more special."
He dreams of Lois again that night, but this time she's wearing a pair of black sweatpants and his oversized red Smallville football hoodie and her legs are swung over his lap as they sit on the couch. A movie he doesn't recognize plays on the television in front of them and every once in a while she tosses a handful of popcorn at him.
Dream-Clark reaches down and tickles her bare feet, which sends her into a fit of giggles. The popcorn bowl careens off her lap and into the floor, but he doesn't relent until they're both red-faced and breathless. Then she smiles up at him and he leans in to kiss her softly.
When he wakes the next morning, he feels more rested than he has in months, but also terribly guilty, like he's done something he can never repent
Even if it was just a dream.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! :)